Washington D.C., Jul 20, 2010 / 00:50 am
After a group from a Christian school in Arizona was told by a U.S. Supreme Court police officer that they must stop praying outside of the court building because it is against the law, a legal defense fund has sent a letter to Supreme Court officials to protest the action. In response, Court officials reiterated the law but said they would investigate.
On May 5, Maureen Rigo, a teacher at Wickenburg Christian Academy in Arizona, was on an educational tour of the Supreme Court complex with her students and a few adults. At the oval plaza in front of the building, they stood off to the side of the bottom of the court steps, bowed their heads and prayed quietly.
The ADF says that they were praying in a conversational tone in order to not attract attention and were not obstructing traffic or demonstrating.
A court police officer approached the group and told them to stop praying in the area immediately. The action was taken on the basis of a statute which bars parades and processions on Supreme Court grounds.
“Christians shouldn’t be silenced for exercising their beliefs through quiet prayer on public property,” commented Nate Kellum, Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) senior counsel. “The last place you’d expect this kind of obvious disregard for the First Amendment would be on the grounds of the U.S. Supreme Court itself, but that’s what happened.”